Political relationships,global financing,and corporate transparency: Evidence from Indonesia

This study examines the role of political connections in firms’ financing strategies and their long-run performance. We view political connections as an example for domestic arrangements which can reduce the benefits of global financing. Using data from Indonesia, we find that firms with strong political connections are less likely to have publicly traded foreign securities. As a result, estimates of the performance consequences of foreign financing are severely biased if value-creating domestic arrangements such as political relationships are ignored. Connections not only alter firms’ financing strategies, they also influence long-run performance. Tracking returns across several regimes, we show that firms have difficulty re-establishing connections with a new government when their patron falls from power, leading closely connected firms to underperform under the new regime and subsequently to increase their foreign financing.     

The role of accrual accounting in restricting dividends to shareholders

This paper addresses the question why net earnings and other accrual accounting numbers are frequently used to restrict dividends to shareholders. Even though this role of accrual accounting is widely accepted in the literature, a theory explaining the role of accruals in dividend restrictions is still in its early stages. Building on the principal–agent framework, I argue that basic features of the accrual process can be viewed as arising from the demand for dividend restrictions mitigating debt-related incentive problems. This explanation is consistent with the observation that, historically, debt contracting, dividend restrictions and the development of accrual accounting have been closely related. The basic idea is that the use of transactions and events in the accrual process leads to a contingent specification of the upper bound on dividends in an earnings-based constraint. Transactions and events used in the accrual process can be viewed as imperfect, but verifiable indicators for (unverifiable) determinants of debt-related incentive problems. This general idea is applied to incentive problems that regularly arise in a multi-period context. The paper demonstrates that the accrual process may mitigate distortions in shareholders' investment decisions using provisions and depreciation charges as examples.     

IAS Versus U.S. GAAP: Information Asymmetry–Based Evidence from Germany's New Market

Motivated by the debate about globally uniform accounting standards, this study investigates whether firms using U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) vis‐à‐vis international accounting standards (IAS) exhibit differences in several proxies for information asymmetry. It exploits a unique setting in which the two sets of standards are put on a level playing field. Firms trading in Germany's New Market must choose between IAS and U.S. GAAP for financial reporting, but face the same regulatory environment otherwise. Thus, institutional factors such as listing requirements, market microstructure, and standards enforcement are held constant. In this setting, differences in the bid‐ask spread and share turnover between IAS and U.S. GAAP firms are statistically insignificant and economically small. Subsequent analyses of analysts' forecast dispersion, initial public offering underpricing, and firms' standard choices corroborate these findings. Thus, at least for New Market firms, the choice between IAS and U.S. GAAP appears to be of little consequence for information asymmetry and market liquidity. These findings do not support widespread claims that U.S. GAAP produce financial statements of higher informational quality than IAS.     

Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review

Review of Accounting Studies - This study collates potential economic effects of mandated disclosure and reporting standards for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability topics. We...     

Discussion of ADRs,Analysts, and Accuracy: Does Cross‐Listing in the United States Improve a Firm's Information Environment and Increase Market Value?

Lang, Lins, and Miller [2002] investigate the relation between cross‐listing in the United States and information intermediation by analysts. The results suggest that cross‐listing in the United States increases analyst following and forecast accuracy and that both variables are associated with Tobin's Q. These findings are interesting and advance the cross‐listing literature in several ways. This discussion raises two issues. First, I highlight that the sources of cross‐listing effects are not obvious and are difficult to disentangle. To illustrate this point, I replicate the analysis using cross‐listed Canadian firms, for which mandated disclosures are held constant. Thus, if disclosure effects are important for documented cross‐listing effects, I expect to find no relation in the Canadian sample. The findings for forecast accuracy are consistent with this hypothesis. However, analyst following continues to be significantly higher for cross‐listed Canadian firms. These findings suggest that the sources of cross‐listing effects differ for analyst coverage and forecast accuracy. Second, I discuss the link between analyst variables, firm value, and cost of capital. As they are only tenuously related, I draw attention to some unresolved questions and areas for future research.     

The crisis of fair-value accounting: Making sense of the recent debate

The recent financial crisis has led to a vigorous debate about the pros and cons of fair-value accounting (FVA). This debate presents a major challenge for FVA going forward and standard setters’ push to extend FVA into other areas. In this article, we highlight four important issues as an attempt to make sense of the debate. First, much of the controversy results from confusion about what is new and different about FVA. Second, while there are legitimate concerns about marking to market (or pure FVA) in times of financial crisis, it is less clear that these problems apply to FVA as stipulated by the accounting standards, be it IFRS or US GAAP. Third, historical cost accounting (HCA) is unlikely to be the remedy. There are a number of concerns about HCA as well and these problems could be larger than those with FVA. Fourth, although it is difficult to fault the FVA standards per se, implementation issues are a potential concern, especially with respect to litigation. Finally, we identify several avenues for future research.     

Cost of capital effects and changes in growth expectations around U.S. cross-listings

This paper examines whether cross-listing in the U.S. reduces firms’ costs of capital. We estimate cost of capital effects implied by market prices and analyst forecasts, which accounts for changes in growth expectations around cross-listings. Firms with cross-listings on U.S. exchanges experience a decrease in their cost of capital between 70 and 120 basis points. These effects are sustained and exist after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We find smaller reductions for cross-listings in the over-the-counter market and for exchange-listings from countries with stronger legal institutions. For exchange-traded cross-listings, the cost of capital reduction accounts for over half of the increase in firm value, whereas for other types of cross-listings the valuation effects are primarily attributable to contemporaneous revisions in growth expectations.     

Why do firms go dark? Causes and economic consequences of voluntary SEC deregistrations

We examine a comprehensive sample of going-dark deregistrations where companies cease SEC reporting, but continue to trade publicly. We document a spike in going dark that is largely attributable to the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. Firms experience large negative abnormal returns when going dark. We find that many firms go dark due to poor future prospects, distress and increased compliance costs after SOX. But we also find evidence suggesting that controlling insiders take their firms dark to protect private control benefits and decrease outside scrutiny, particularly when governance and investor protection are weak. Finally, we show that going dark and going private are distinct economic events.